Shopping on the Lido

ABOVE: A man and his dog take a break while
shoppers go out and about on a Saturday morning.

For much of the year, the Lido is a dormitory suburb of Venice.
Shops and services are geared mostly to locals, and you'll find a much wider
variety of shops in Venice than on the Lido.

Still, if you're in a shopping mood, you'll find a
reasonable assortment of boutiques (along with a handful of souvenir shops)
on the island's main business street, the Gran Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta.

Another
shopping street is the Via Lepanto, which starts off as a pedestrian zone to
the right of the Gran Viale as you walk inland from the Lido S.M.E. waterbus
station. On Saturdays, vendors set up stalls along the street and under a
shelter on the Via Vettor Pisani, across a canal from the Via Lepanto.

Tip:
If you need to wash clothes, follow the Via Lepanto a few blocks until you
reach a laundromat on the left side of the street. (The lavanderia
is on the ground floor
of a modern apartment building with a façade of stone blocks. Rates
aren't cheap, but they do include detergent and fabric softener.)

For outdoor markets, try Il
Farmer's Market, a.k.a. Il Mercato del Contadino, on the
Riva di Corinto at Via Falcier on the Lagoon side of the
Lido, near the sports fields. It's open on Fridays from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
On Tuesdays, a weekly market
with both food and non-food items operates in the same location from 7 a.m.
to 2 p.m. (See the City of Venice's
markets map and zoom in on the Lido. Ignore the yellow marker: The blue
marker is more accurate.)

During the warmer months, you can buy swimwear and other
beach-related items in a shop at the Lido's public bathhouse.

Do
you need to load up on picnic supplies, stock the kitchen of a self-catering
apartment, or buy pesto and pasta for the folks back home? Try the
Conad City supermarket (see our
Lido Restaurants and Food page) and
Rizzo, a deli, bakery, and
confectioner that offers a wide assortment of food gifts. Rizzo also has a café next to its shop on the Gran
Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta, not far from the waterbus station.